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by
John Chuckman
July
31, 2003
"[T]he writer should always be ready
to change sides at the drop of a hat. He stands for the victims, and the
victims change."
-- Graham Greene
Anger
over the abuse of power unavoidably drives my views. I can't explain why this
should be so, and it doesn't truly matter why. It just is. So you might expect
I would be glad to see a tyrant like Saddam Hussein receive even America's idea
of justice.
But
I'm not.
Apart
from knowing that vampires like Pinochet or Amin live in comfort and that the
Shah of Iran died receiving every benefit America could bestow, I cannot
imagine anything more dangerous than America's establishing an unchallenged
right to capture anyone on earth, treating him or her as it pleases - a
nightmarish global extension of Israel's horrific practices in the Middle East.
One
thinks of the 680 prisoners held in Cuba under no proper legal authority or
charges and the vigilante-style justice they face. These people, most or all of
them, are guilty of responding only to a call to arms when attacked. Killing
soldiers who invade your country is not a crime, and I trust everyone
understands the sinister implications of making it a special crime to kill
American soldiers who invade countries.
Some
of these prisoners come from countries other than Afghanistan. Traditionally,
those who volunteer in a foreign cause are not treated as war criminals. The
many French who served the American Revolution were not treated that way by
Britain.
While
America's Puritan descendents tend to view themselves as decent, honest, and
obeying the will of God, the world must remember their heritage of obliterating
whole small nations of peoples, living off the avails of slavery and
near-slavery for centuries, and swallowing up any place regarded as desirable
enough (the sad case of Hawaii, seized despite petitions signed by its entire
population and ignored by Congress, perhaps being the most flagrant. Note that
the very cages holding America's prisoners in Cuba sit on land taken from Cuba).
If
America does capture Hussein, would he be tried by the Defense Department in
the same fashion as the prisoners in Cuba are to be? Imagine the moral and
legal absurdity of Donald Rumsfeld, who shook hands and made deals with
Hussein, effectively serving as de facto high-court judge? Perhaps instead,
Hussein would be turned over to the small group of unelected men America has
set up as a shadow government in Iraq? That certainly sounds reasonable, an
ex-ruler being tried by people who gain from his demise?
If
some Iraqi betrays Hussein - and blood-money of $25 million in a third-world
country is monstrously great temptation - it might prove convenient to treat
him as America treated his sons, that is, to murder him under cover of his
attempted capture, there being no other explanation for the sons' deaths in a
house surrounded by well-armed men and machines.
For
some, this undoubtedly is a satisfying prospect, but it would leave many
questions unanswered for the rest of us. Then again, leaving those questions
unanswered is a powerful motive for Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld. Any semblance
of a fair trial would enable Hussein to tell us extremely embarrassing things
about these people, and wouldn't he be entitled to call them as hostile
witnesses? You begin to see in this why ex-tyrants so rarely face trial.
Even
if we grant that America is a fully-functioning democracy, certainly an
arguable point with its elections choked by money and its legislators guided by
special interests, still when it acts as it has in Iraq or Afghanistan, it
behaves little differently than any tyrannous government. No principle supports
such action, other than the shabby one of might makes right.
George
Bush is not the world's elected leader. Many would add that he is not truly
even America's elected leader. How is it justified for a tiny slice of
humanity, American active voters, to decide the fate of nations and foreign
nationals, to impose their laws and views and prejudices on others? It is not,
of course. America's active voters represent roughly one percent of the world
population, about the same fraction members of China's Communist party
represent out of the population of China.
America's
one percent believes it is guided by right, justice, and high principles, but
then so do the members of the Communist Party of China.
America's
democracy appointing itself sole arbiter of world events has nothing to do with
democratic values. It has to do with the abuse of power by a tiny, wealthy
minority of the world's population, a ruling class, as viewed from outside,
whose ancestors just happened to grab vast chunks of the most productive real
estate on earth. But most Americans do not care what the world's view may be,
and isn't that attitude on the part of immensely powerful people far more
dangerous for the future than anything puny Hussein ever could have done?
_______________________________________________________________
Afterward:
What do I mean by "even America's idea of justice"?
I
include the sense of things that has a President, once a rich and carefree
young man known to have abused various drugs without once suffering a
significant penalty, spending his political career as governor of Texas
gloating over tens of thousands of poor young men imprisoned for the same act.
This rich young man also avoided military service during war, not for reasons
of conscience or principle, but to continue his carefree ways, later displaying
no hesitation ordering others to their deaths.
America
is a country that imprisons world-record levels of its poor population while
effectively tolerating gigantic corporate swindles. The people who damage
millions of others and steal billions never suffer penalties comparable to the
poor who steal something paltry.
It
is not well understood outside America that if you are poor and are tried for
murder in that country, you will either die or spend your life in an extremely
harsh prison. Someone rich, under the same circumstances, more often than not,
suffers little penalty beyond the cost of an expensive trial.
These
and many other comparable circumstances undoubtedly color and distort America's
ideas of what is just in the world.
John Chuckman lives in Canada and is
former chief economist for a large Canadian oil company. He writes frequently
for Yellow Times.org and other publications.